STORRS >> Lost in the clamor of Kevin Ollie’s ejection from Saturday night’s Louisville game was a lost performance by DeAndre Daniels.

The 6-foot-9 junior forward, fresh off perhaps his best game as a Husky two nights earlier, was near-invisible in the 76-64 loss to Louisville. He scored just three points in 23 minutes, hitting just 1 of 9 shots from the floor. Daniels picked up his second foul just over six minutes into the game and sat the rest of the half. But he played nearly the entire second half and didn’t score a single point, apparently drawing the on-air wrath of Dick Vitale. In fact, only Mr. Quick-Hook himself, referee Mike Stuart, seemed to fare worse Saturday night in the eyes of Dickie V., we’re told.

In a way, this past week has been a microcosm of Daniels’ career as a Husky: at times brilliant, seemingly the team’s best NBA prospect. At other times, nearly invisible, passive, ineffective.

Daniels’ was easily the best player on the floor in the Huskies’ huge 83-73 win at No. 17 Memphis on Thursday night. He poured in a game-high 23 points and, more impressively, grabbed a season-high 11 rebounds for his fourth career double-double. When he wasn’t hitting 3-pointers with his feather-soft touch, he was taking the ball to the hole and beating defenders on the low post with his patented spin moves.

Advertisement

“DeAndre was unbelievable,” Ollie gushed afterwards.

Even that game was somewhat of a mirror of Daniels’ career, albeit on a smaller scale. Daniels scored UConn’s first five points against the Tigers, then went quiet and didn’t score another point in the first half. UConn trailed by one at the break.

He came out to start the second half and scored eight of UConn’s first 10 points. This time, he didn’t stop, finishing with 18 points over the final 20 minutes.

“I felt like, in the second half, I was more aggressive,” he said Thursday night. “I saw how they played me in the first half and I wasn’t playing my best, I was hesitating. I wanted to be more aggressive in the second half, and I was able to knock down some shots and get going.”

Fast-forward to two nights later, and Daniels was on the bench in foul trouble for the final 14 minutes of the first half against Louisville. Nothing he could do, and no doubt his absence hurt the Huskies, who had few answers for the Cardinals’ active, 2-3 zone.

“It hurt,” Ollie noted. “It hurt him, because he played (38 minutes) in the Memphis game. He’s a great player for us. Getting in that zone, he’s 6-9, when he’s shooting the ball well he can get in that four-hole and make plays. Him sitting on the bench hurt our rotation.”

But, Ollie added: “At the end of the day, he played the second half, and he’s got to play better. That’s just my two cents. You’ve got to respond as a basketball player, that’s what we try to teach our guys. He had two fouls. I would have been boiling mad coming out of halftime. I would have got my third or fourth real quick on a charge, or throwing somebody out of my way. I would have done something.”

Ollie wound up showing the most emotion, vehemently arguing what appeared to be an awful no-call, then getting a very quick hook after being hit with his first technical foul.

Of course, Daniels wasn’t the only UConn player who didn’t necessarily step up in the latter half on Saturday.

“That’s the whole team,” Ollie said. “We’ve got to play with emotion. We got down, we’ve got to come out with fire and passion.”

But there’s little doubt that UConn needs Daniels to be a consistent force if it intends on making noise come March. He remains the team’s best NBA prospect, a long 6-9 small forward who can stick the 3. And though he’s still rather thin and will likely never be a rebounding force, he’s one of the best on a team that has sorely needed better boardwork for much of this season.

“We told DeAndre, ‘Don’t worry about scoring,’” Ollie was saying a couple of nights ago. “Just get 16, 17 touches a game, then your scoring is going to take over.”